Invited error refers to a trial court's error

Error (law)

There are many kinds of error in law. Reversible error can lead to a judgment being overturned on appeal. Harmless error is distinguished from plain error in that if error is preserved by the making of a timely objection, the burden of proof is on the appellee to show that the error was harmless,...

 against which a party cannot complain to an appellate court

Appellate court

An appellate court, commonly called an appeals court or court of appeals or appeal court , is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal...

 because the party encouraged or prompted the error by its own conduct during the trial. The original goal of the invited error doctrine was to prohibit a party from setting up an error at trial and then complaining of it on appeal. In Pam, the State intentionally set up an error in order to create a test case

Test case

A test case in software engineering is a set of conditions or variables under which a tester will determine whether an application or software system is working correctly or not. The mechanism for determining whether a software program or system has passed or failed such a test is known as a test...

for appeal. Since then, the doctrine has been applied even in cases where the error resulted from neither negligence nor bad faith. See, e.g.,